Göttweig Abbey

Today’s excursion is a short one. We’d cruised upriver to Krems overnight, and set out to see the abbey at Göttweig in the morning. I don’t think Krems has much else going for it, as we set off again as soon as we’d got back for lunch.

We were divided into five groups for the tour, with the first three groups leaving at 8:15am. Fortunately we got onto the second group leaving half an hour later so didn’t have to be up too early. The abbey is just a 15 minute drive up the hill, and once there we watched a short film, and then were met by our tour guide, Raphael, who gave us a very ordered, structured, efficient tour. Unfortunately, he doesn’t appear to have much experience with guidees, as they lollygagged, wandered off, and generally failed to comply. Not looking at anyone in particular here, who would have been locked out of the museum if someone else hadn’t intervened… 

Front of the church. Can you spot the fake windows?

Raphael subjected us to the history of the abbey, how it burnt down in 1718 and was rebuilt at that point. Unfortunately the project manager hadn’t consulted with the finance manager and they ran out of money, so many of the projected details (towers, dome, additional buildings) were never added, and even the main church has some windows painted on, as they didn’t have the cash for real ones. He also told us about the symbology of the ceiling fresco, which was painted, oh, ages ago, and includes portraits of the sponsor and the abbot, amongst a selection of Greek gods. 

The monks make everything they can out of apricots, which grow in abundance here. On entry, we tried some apricot wine, which fortunately didn’t taste too strongly of apricots. At the end of the tour, we tasted three of their other wines made more traditionally from grapes. These were a grüner veltliner, a Riesling, and a pinot noir. Of these, the veltliner was the best – having become accustomed to New Zealand rieslings and pinot noirs, I found these insipid and flabby.   

What can we make out of these?

We returned to the boat in time for lunch, and then we started cruising up the Wachau valley. This is more picturesque than some of the sections we’ve been up before, with quaint towns along the banks, and scenery.